A. I would like to ask you to think for a moment about one second after you die. That moment immediately following your death is something many people don’t consider while they are alive. But Paul pushes the Christians in Corinth to think about such things. Listen again to 2 Cor. 4:16-18 and 5:6-7.
B. Living by faith is far more than a simple phrase or song that we sing. It is more than a platitude or cliché. Paul wants us to live this life in such a way that looks forward to what follows. So I ask you to think about that moment right after you die. What do you see? Most people who have some out of body experience or see something beyond this life see “light” or some other idea of heaven. I have not read of someone seeing fire or feeling pain that is unbearable but yet does not stop. Yet, I ask you, are you living in what you believe? Is your faith active, vibrant, impacting every aspect of your life? Do you think about eternity as you make your decisions in this body? What will happen the moment after you die?
C. I have spoken at many funerals. The majority are people that from my understanding lived a life in connection with the blood of Jesus Christ and now are clothed with a new indestructible body, a house made by God not by man. Yet, I have no real control over their eternal outcome. I can’t preach anyone into heaven any easier than I could preach someone into hell. But today I want to share a funeral sermon, not for someone who had died, but for us who are alive. I want us to think about ourselves as if we were dead and what happens next. Let’s examine these verses to see the calling from God on how to live this life so that we can have the guarantee of living with him after this body is dead.
I. Death Is A Reality
A. What every person needs to understand is that death is a reality and it unpredictable for most people. Paul speaks of our physical body in two metaphors – a tent and clothing. As Paul teaches us in this section, we were not created to simply be a physical being. You were created to be a spiritual being.
B. I want you to think back to the Tabernacle. The purpose of the Tabernacle was a moveable tent that would house the Ark of the Covenant. As God led the people through the wilderness as a pillar of cloud or fire, the people were commanded to move the Tabernacle. They would set it up, take down and move. It was treated with respect. It was treated as a house of God, but it was only temporary. It was not intended to be a permanent home, yet it housed the essence of God on earth. It may be that this is the image Paul was thinking as he described our human bodies as an earthly tent or earthly tabernacle. This body that you and I have will one day be dismantled or destroyed. It will cease.
C. The Hebrew writer says, “It is appointed unto man, once to die, and after that the judgment.” King Hezekiah was told to “set his house in order” for he would die and not live. Even though, God ended up giving him another 15 years of life, the idea that we need to get our life in order, our house in order, because we will all die.
D. If today I was to stand before your family and friends and deliver your eulogy, what would be said concerning your spiritual life? Would I be limited to talk only about your relationship with other people and family members, your job, or your achievements? When I am called upon to speak at a funeral, the aspect I desire to talk about most is the person’s spiritual life. Where will you be the moment after you die? Listen again to verse 10 of our text.
E. Brethren, listen to me this day, death is a reality that many of us refuse to consider. Paul does not want you to be concerned or worried about your death, so he gives us this section to help us learn about it and how living this life affects the hereafter.
II. Heavenly Body
A. The Bible does not describe in any great detail what a spiritual body would look like. It can’t, because we can only see the physical. Yet, Paul speaks in such confidence that he says, “We have building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.” He goes on to say that as Christians we “long to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling.”
B. Paul is not morbid in his teaching. Paul is not looking forward to dying. He is not suicidal. He is simply stating that this body that we now have pales in comparison to the one will be given.
C. But he wants us to know that God himself has something greater in store for his children than the pains found in this human body. As Christians we have something to look forward to. We long for and desire to be with God for we know that being with the Lord is better than fighting the desires of the flesh and the sin that so easily entangles us. Our new body, our heavenly dwelling will swallow up this mortal one and in it we will have true life. In fact, God has so prepared us for the clothing of the spiritual body, that he has place his Holy Spirit inside Christians as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come. We have a little bit of that spiritual body already with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
III. The Here And Now
A. But here is where it all comes to. Read again verses 6-10. There is truth that in this human form we lack some of the depth of relationship we have with God. Do your remember Paul’s description of Jesus in Phil 2:6-8? Jesus humbled himself, took on the form of flesh and in the body was obedient to the will of the Father. That is how we should see the here and now. Paul simply states, “We live by faith and not by sight.” Let me rephrase that to make sure we understand that Paul is teaching. We live in this flesh, in this temporary tent, by a faith in what is believed more than a faith in what is seen.
B. I can’t see my spiritual body. I don’t know what my mother’s body looks like right now, but I live by faith knowing that God has prepared for me a body that incorruptible and meets my eternal needs as I dwell in his presence. I don’t have to have physical proof except in the proof of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
C. How do I live? Paul’s statement is, “we make it our goal to please him.” There are many of you here today that have shown the fruit of repentance. You make it your goal to please God and when that means you change some action or way of thinking, you make those changes. You desire to please God and you do that because you also know that one day you will stand before the judgment seat of Christ.
Conclusion:
A. Where will you be the moment after this body dies? That is the only real question that matters. Most likely, someone will stand before a group of people and share thoughts about your life. No matter what is said, a judgment will have already taken place and body prepared for you will already be yours. This tabernacle will be dismantled and new dwelling, a permanent one, will be yours.
B. Have you set your house in order? You too will die and not live. You too will face Jesus, not as a savior, which he offers to you now, but as a judge. Today could be the day you accept the grace of Christ and in your true repentance and confession of Jesus as Lord, are buried with him in baptism and come up out of that water a person who houses the Holy Spirit. Have you done connect with blood of Jesus Christ through your own death, burial and resurrection of baptism? If you have, are you living by faith, living to please Him? If we can be of help in your spiritual journey, come as we stand and sing.
